amount of poles making a difference at fences?

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Tory27

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What I'm trying to say is, does it make a difference to a horse if you have a 'gappy' spread/upright or a 'filled' one?

For example: gappy = spread/upright with a pole at height and ground pole as opposed to 'filled' fence with fillers or 3-4 poles?

Reason for my asking is me and horsey are slowly moving up the ranks BS and need to start jumping bigger tracks. We need to start jumping Newcomers as we've qualified for second rounds both BN and discovery (which we had our way last weekend but I dint go because i don't feel shes ready) I know those heights can go up to 1.15-1.20+. So to get horse's eye she needs to jump bigger tracks to gain understanding and confidence. We've had two goes so far at NC and both times gotten about halfway and been eliminated due to refusals. Now this is no way my horses fault, she clearly just has a lack of understanding at the bigger fences. At home we regularly jump 1.20 or a bit higher so she defiantly has the scope BUT i only have a handful of jumps and poles. Which goes back to my question, it is possible horsey is finding it difficult to read the fences at a BS show because of how 'full' the fences are? She only practices over my gappy ones due to having no extra poles of fillers. Or is it just inexperience on my horses part? Should we just keep ticking along until she grasps it?

I am looking at buying some more wings and poles maybe even some fillers, but its finding them at a reasonable price it rather tricky..
 
Tory27 said:
I am looking at buying some more wings and poles maybe even some fillers, but its finding them at a reasonable price it rather tricky..
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You don't need to buy fancy poles and fillers for the jumps to be suitable. Old tyres, road cones, bales of hay, sections of wooden pallets, an old ladder on it's side, branches from fallen trees, tarpaulin draped over a pole etc should all work as temporary fillers and help get your horse more used to the fuller style jumps. I've even seen old footballs threaded onto a rope used to 'fill' jumps. Make sure they are safe to use and will collapse/fall if knocked though.
 
Horses are more likely to knock a gappy fence which is why BS are moving more towards them.
Very filled in fences make the fence look bigger. This has the advantage of making the horse jump bigger so less chance of a knock down but downside is the horse thinks fence is bigger than it is. For horses lacking confidence at height this can be a problem as you have found out.
 
I suspect it has less to do with how the fences are presented and more to do with her need to be a bit more accurate and in a really good rhythm, stride pattern once the courses get bigger, the distances will be related, the back rails further away in oxers and if you are a bit flat or off at a 1.15 fence if she lacks experience and confidence she will stop rather than leap into the unknown, unless she is backing off at certain types of fillers I don't think it is going to make much difference buying that many extra fences and your money may be best spent on some really good training from someone who is going to help you be better prepared.
 
From a quick look at prices, it seems that multicoloured poles are around £10 per metre (so a 1.8m pole is £18, a 2.4m pole is £24), so I can see how buying three extra poles per obstacle adds up quickly if you want to set up a course of thre or four obstacles.

Tarpaulin at 1.8m wide can be had for around £80 for a 100m roll; you could use that as a filler between top and bottom poles. A 100m roll might seem like a lot, but it would probably come in handy for rigging up shades and for covering bales in wet weather.
 
be positive said:
I suspect it has less to do with how the fences are presented and more to do with her need to be a bit more accurate and in a really good rhythm, stride pattern once the courses get bigger, the distances will be related, the back rails further away in oxers and if you are a bit flat or off at a 1.15 fence if she lacks experience and confidence she will stop rather than leap into the unknown, unless she is backing off at certain types of fillers I don't think it is going to make much difference buying that many extra fences and your money may be best spent on some really good training from someone who is going to help you be better prepared.
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I think you a right in what you say. its not really the fillers as such she finds 'spooky' its staying in the rhythm and just lacking the confidence to go forwards and take the on the fences. its an 'oh where did that come from' moment and she just puts in a stop. She'll get there.

Taken note of the filler options thank you. I have lots of things i could use to fill the fences it just never occurred to me to use them!! Durr.
 
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